Roller Furling Mainsail Vertical Battens

Oct 27, 2010
119
E-22 e-22 Stratford
Though we've been building furling mains with vertical battens on the Beneteau boats since 2007, the "BOW" batten pocket was introduced in 2010 and often sailors new to furling mains ask about the batten installation.
Here's our short take on how it's done.
Bob Pattison
 
Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
Just seeing those vertical battens gives me the heebe jeebes. On my H356 I had full length round vertical battens which had connections because they were too long to transport or store. The longest was close to 50'. When I bought the boat it overwintered at Liberty Landing Marina. There is a retired lightship there the Ambrose, I think. Anyway, I didn't know what to do with the battens so I taped them to a hand rail that ran down a corridor about half the length of the ship. There they spent the winter. When my sailmaker saw the battens (I removed and stored them in various places before taking the sails in) he said they were "...like vertical battens 1.0." He upgraded them to the flatfish flexible type I think shown in your video and make them maybe a third as long. That really helped with the in mast furling (The round ones barely fit through the mast slot) and didn't hurt the sail shape - which wasn't that great to begin with.
As I write this more memories are coming back. It was a b*tch to get those round battens in the pockets and get the pockets closed. When the sail would flog during furling the back and forth bending of the battens would cause them to break through the batten pocket ends near the boom. Then the battens would work there way out and I'd have to go up there and push them back in so I could get the sail in. Other times I would just take them out, which wasn't easy either due to their length and the sail flogging. Ah, memories! I hated that system and I thank the Lord every time I jump a sail at the mast.
 
Jun 21, 2004
2,532
Beneteau 343 Slidell, LA
Had my Neil pride furling mainsail retrofitted a few years ago to the new thin battens & new pocket design. Solved my jamming problems completely; haven't jammed it since the mods. Well worth the cost.